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Is There a Solution for Focus-Hungry Apps?
V.Toulias asks: "Over the past few years, I have seen a rise in the percentage of applications installed in my Windows box that do not ask nicely for my attention but force themselves into view when they think they have something important to tell me. Mail clients that pop-up into view when a new email is sent or received, instant messengers that pop up when a new message arrives, browser pop-ups that... pop-up even though the page is loading in a 'background window', informational OS messages, It-seems-that-you're-writing-a-letter app helpers, security warnings and the list goes on. It doesn't take a science study to realize the adverse effects that this phenomenon is causing on your productivity and concentration. So, apart from the obvious suggestion of switching OS, is there any other solution to this disturbing trend?"
Most applications allow you to disable many of the pop-up stuff that you're talking about right in the options menu. Outlook has it for new email. MSN I believe has this feature (I use Trillian, but Windows Messenger has that option). I've never had Firefox pop up trying to steal attention...except for update I believe. Windows security warnings can all be disabled through the control panel. You can disable Clippy. Just look through the options menu. It's there, somewhere. If there isn't an option anywhere to disable it...google that specific app. There's probably a registry key you can mess with.
Go to the microsoft website and download the power toys, I believe the program is called Tweak UI. Here you can adjust focus settings and get rid of that stupid yellow balloon that keeps popping up.